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Boston Symphony Orchestra, classical, classical music, composers, Dvorák, Mozart, opera, orchestra, philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Russian composers
Monday, April 4, 2016
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Birthdays
In 1843 Hans Richter was born. He was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was good local composer, conductor and regens chori Anton Richter. His mother was opera-singer Jozefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory. He had a particular interest in the horn, and developed his conducting career at several different opera houses in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He became associated with Richard Wagner in the 1860s, and in 1876 he was chosen to conduct the first complete performance of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. In 1877, he assisted the ailing composer as conductor of a major series of Wagner concerts in London, and from then onwards he became a familiar feature of English musical life, appearing at many choral festivals including as principal conductor of the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival (1885–1909) and directing the Hallé Orchestra (1899–1911) and the newly formed London Symphony Orchestra (1904–1911). In Europe his work was chiefly based in Vienna, where (transcending the bitter division between the followers of Wagner and those of Johannes Brahms) he gave much attention to the works of Brahms himself, Anton Bruckner (who once slipped a coin into his hand after a concert by way of a tip) and Antonín Dvořák (he gave the London and Vienna premieres of the Symphonic Variations); he also continued to work at Bayreuth. In later years, Richter became a whole-hearted admirer of Sir Edward Elgar, and he also came to accept Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. On one occasion, he laid down his baton and allowed a London orchestra to play the whole second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony itself. Never afraid to experiment on behalf of the music he loved, he lent his authority to an English-language production of The Ring at Covent Garden (1908). In 1909 he delivered the British premiere, very shortly after the world premiere in Boston, of Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s Symphony in B minor “Polonia”. Failing eyesight forced his retirement in 1911. He died at Bayreuth in 1916. Richter’s approach to conducting was monumental rather than mercurial or dynamic, emphasizing the overall structure of major works in preference to bringing out individual moments of beauty or passion. Some observers regarded him as little more than a time-beater; but others, notably Eugene Goossens, pointed to the remarkable rhythmic vitality of his work, a quality which hardly squares with the image of Richter as a rather stolid and static personality.
“Hans Richter was first brought to England by Wagner in 1877 to conduct six operatic concerts in London. The impact made by Richter (then 32 years old) on the capital’s orchestral players was enormous. They had never been rehearsed so thoroughly, nor with such discipline as that of a genuine musician rather than a showman; nothing was allowed to slip through as the fundamentals were revisited. Intonation was scrutinised, details brought out, tempi rationalised, notes corrected. His practical knowledge (he played every orchestral instrument) proved formidable and no weak player felt secure. He usually conducted rehearsals and performances of orchestral concerts and operas from memory. The living composers whose works he introduced to British audiences were the greats in whose company he could be found, Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Stanford, Parry and Elgar. For 20 years from 1879 he toured the length and breadth of Britain with his Richter Orchestra. — Christopher Fifield, Hans Richter’s impact as a career conductor.
A rebuke he is supposed to have made to a musician in the Covent Garden orchestra is still sometimes quoted: “Up with your damned nonsense will I put twice, or perhaps once, but sometimes always, by God, never.”1
In 1922 Elmer Bernstein was born. He was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions. His most popular works include the scores to The Magnificent Seven, The Ten Commandments, The Great Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, Ghostbusters, The Black Cauldron, Airplane!, The Rookies, and Cape Fear. He won an Oscar for his score to Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and was nominated for fourteen Oscars in total. He also won two Golden Globes and was nominated for two Grammy Awards. 2
Happy birthday Thomas Trotter! He is a British concert organist. He is Birmingham City Organist, organist of St Margaret’s, Westminster and visiting Professor of Organ at the Royal College of Music, London. He was a pupil at Malvern College and organ scholar of, and studied music at, King’s College, Cambridge. He also studied under Marie-Claire Alain, winning the Prix de Virtuosité in her class. He won first prize in the interpretation competition at the St Albans International Organ Festival in 1979 and made his debut in London’s Royal Festival Hall the following year. He was appointed Birmingham City Organist in 1983, succeeding Sir George Thalben-Ball. In May 2001 he was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society award for Best Instrumentalist, the first organist to win this award. In July 2003 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Central England. 3
Happy birthday Jane Eaglen! A neighbour noticed Eaglen’s musical interest, and she started piano lessons at the age of five, continuing until she was sixteen. Her piano teacher then suggested she take singing lessons, and for a year she studied with a local teacher. “One day you will sing Norma and Brünnhilde”, her teacher told her to which Jane asked “Are they good?” “Yeah, yeah”, her teacher replied, “they’re pretty good”. After having been turned down by the Guildhall School in London, Jane auditioned at age eighteen for Joseph Ward, the voice professor at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Ward recognized her potential, and took Eaglen on as a student. Within weeks Ward had directed her toward the roles such as Norma and Brünnhilde. In 1984 she joined the English National Opera, and spent a couple of years singing the First Lady in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Berta, the servant in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. Other roles included Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. When she was cast as Santuzza in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, audiences went wild. Eaglen broke into the major opera scene when she was cast as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Scottish Opera. She went on to sing Brünnhilde and the title roles in Tosca and Norma with that company. She made her American debut as Norma in 1994 with Seattle Opera as a last-minute replacement for Carol Vaness, and followed, two weeks later with Brünnhilde at Opera Pacific, a last-minute replacement for Ealynn Voss. Her first Isolde came in 1998 with the Seattle Opera, a company she has returned to consistently. She repeated the role in 1999 in Chicago and in 2000 at the Metropolitan Opera. 4
Happy birthday Vladimir Jurowski! He is a Russian conductor. He is the son of conductor Mikhail Jurowski, and grandson of Soviet film music composer Vladimir Michailovich Jurowski. Jurowski began his musical studies at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1990, he moved with his family, including his brother Dmitri (conductor) and his sister Maria (pianist) to Germany, where he completed his education at the music schools at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. He studied conducting with Rolf Reuter and vocal coaching with Semion Skigin.[1] He participated in a conducting master class with Sir Colin Davis on Sibelius’ Symphony No. 7 in 1991. Jurowski first appeared on the international scene in 1995 at the Wexford Festival, where he conducted Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera May Night, and he returned the following year for Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’étoile du nord, which was recorded by Naxos Records. In April 1996, he made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducting Nabucco. 5
Premieres
In 1739 Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt was premiered at the King’s Theater in London.
In 1779 Mozart’s ‘Coronation’ Mass in C was premiered in the Salzburg Cathedral.
In 1838 excerpts from Mikhail Glinka’s Russlan and Ludmilla were premiered in St. Petersburg. It would not be performed in whole until 1842.
In 1861 Johann Strauss Junior’s Perpetuum Mobile was premiered in Vienna.
In 1867 Camille Saint-Saens’ Violin Concerto No. 1 was premiered in Paris.
In 1875 Bedřich Smetana’s Vltava from Ma Vlast was premiered in Prague. By this time Smetana was totally deaf and couldn’t hear his own composition.
In 1955 Igor Stravinsky’s Greeting Prelude (for the 80th birthday of conductor Pierre Monteux) was premiered by the Boston Symphony conducted by Charles Munch.
In 1975 George Rochberg’s Violin Concerto was premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony, with Isaac Stern as soloist.
In 1977 Henryk Goreck’s Symphony No. 3 (‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’) was premiered in Royan.
On This Day in Classical Music
In 1900 Antonín Dvořák made his final conducting appearance with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. On the program was Brahms’ Tragic Overture, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, Beethoven’s 8th Symphony. and his own symphonic poem The Wild Dove.
Recommended Listening
- Wikipedia contributors, “Hans Richter (conductor),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hans_Richter_(conductor)&oldid=705140178 (accessed March 31, 2016).
- Wikipedia contributors, “Elmer Bernstein,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elmer_Bernstein&oldid=702767039 (accessed March 31, 2016).
- Wikipedia contributors, “Thomas Trotter,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Trotter&oldid=706574887 (accessed March 31, 2016).
- Wikipedia contributors, “Jane Eaglen,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jane_Eaglen&oldid=703988304 (accessed March 31, 2016).
- Wikipedia contributors, “Vladimir Jurowski,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vladimir_Jurowski&oldid=707536563 (accessed March 31, 2016).